Page 76 of A Lady’s Guide to Witchcraft

“I asked you a question, Briar.” His voice hardened and his fingers stilled. Her pulse fluttered against his palm. The combination was too perfect. Too much. She made a sound she was not proud of.

“Yes,” she breathed out.

“Yes what?” He was patient, unforgiving.

“Yes, you know what I need—Ah!” She broke off on a gasp when he plunged two fingers inside of her, stroking deep. His thumb brushed her bud. He pressed against the little hood at the top and it made her buck. She was already lightheaded with pleasure. He really was a menace to good society.

Thank the moon.

He curled his fingers, still deep in her channel, dragging against her intimate flesh. She fluttered around him. “So wet for me,” he whispered roughly. “So perfect.”

Deeper, slower, until she was again whimpering.

“Are you going to come, sweetheart?”

She moaned, “Yes.”

“Right here? In your kitchen, where anyone might see you?”

“Yes. Please.”

“And are you going to be more careful?” he asked.

“Yes!” She was very close to babbling. She would have said anything. He was working her closer and closer to a release she knew would burn right through her. Her thighs trembled in anticipation.

He sighed, disappointed. “I’m not convinced.” He stilled his hand again.

The waves of her release retreated. “What?”

“Convince me.”

She was helpless, throat in his grip, heat racing under her skin. He was in control. And she loved it.

Still. It was the principle of the thing. And the fact that she was still squirming with unmet desire.

“Ethan Swansea, so help me, I’ll do it myself.” Her fingertips barely brushed over her own slick and swollen folds when he stopped her. He gripped her wrist hard, his forearm pinning her ruthlessly against his body. His hardness slipped between her buttocks, another tease. She was a butterfly tacked to a board. Sensations ran through her and she could not chase any of them. “Ethan!”

He shook his head with false sympathy. “Only good girls get to come.”

The names she called him were not generally used by genteel spinsters who lived in pink cottages.

His answering laugh was dark and merciless.

When she finally came, the pears in the tree just outside the kitchen ripened all at once.

Her customers went missing at the same time as the pieces of the broken moon charm.

It was mere hours later and word had traveled fast that Petal was missing and might be involved with the shields, and that Briar was keeping company with a notorious Iron Crow.

As predicted, it was not good for business.

When she asked the tea leaves about it, she swore she heard them laugh at her.

“Fine, then,” she muttered, pushing the cup away and ducking out into the garden. Charles might well have been making empty threats when he said he knew where Petal was, but he meant every word when he said his family would have the cottage and her gardens. It was the only thing they wanted. They didn’t care about the shields.

And no customers meant no money.

No money meant she would never be able to pay off her mother’s debt.